Market briefing---Bob (fast)
NYSE---Deb (fast)
Nasdaq---Julie (medium)
homebuilder hovnanian with its first quarter report in the extended hours. here’s how it closed for the regular session. way up. much the same for the major market indexes. as they settle, a look at how they’re dog. dow jones industrials up 94 points. s&p up 11. nasdaq up 28. as far as the s&p is concerned, it looks like record closes for the s&p mid cap and small cap indexes. more on that when the final numbers come in. stocks with a big lift from another strong reading on the u.s. economy. a gaming of manufacturing in february held close to a two- decade high. more factories said they’re hiring to meet demand. the institute for supply management’s factory index registered 61.4 last month, the fourth consecutive month over 60 and the longest since 1984, also the 10th straight month the index has been above 50 which signals growth. the employment index rose to 56.3, highest since 1987. the new orders index which accounts for 1/3 of the total was 64.4. production 63.9. many are encouraged by the increased breadth in recovery in manufacturing. all 20 manufacturing industries reported growth. one worrysome note. the simply managers prices paid index rose to the highest since february 1995. a separate report showed personal spending rose .4% in january as americans spent more on services and bought non- durable goods such as clothing. income increased .2% less than earlier. farm and rental incomes declined. wages and salaries with a half percent gain. the commerce department reported an unexpected .3% drop in construction spending in january. that’s the first decrease in eight months. cold temperatures may have restrained building in some parts of the country. the i.s.m. prices paid index was way up. a measure of inflation tied to the spending report, personal consumption spending index rose .3%, just .1% after excluding volatile food and energy prices. betting yields below 4%. 10-year yield 3.98%. on the shorter enthere was little change at all. the two-year yielding 1.66%. the dollar got a boost from the manufacturing report and speculation the european central bank might cut interest rates on thursday. the dollar was up against the euro and pound. down in late trading against the japanese yen. there wasn’t much doubt about stocks today. from the open, the dow was higher. it kept climbing throughout the session. dow jones industrials finishing the day up about 94 points at 10,678. volume on the new york stock exchange about 1.5 billion shares traded, close to average. the s&p finishing higher on the day by 11 points at 1,156. now the s&p mid cap and small cap index is closing at 611 and 288, setting new records. to deborah kostroun on the floor of the big board with a wrapup of the action there. deb, pretty good day.
>> it was. in fact, a pretty good rally we saw in the dow jones industrial average. best rally in 2 1/2 weeks. what started it out was manufacturing coming in at a 20- year high. what that tells the market is we have this growing economy again. that is very helpful, especially to many of the earnings. something related to the manufacturing, many of the materials and also energy stocks those indexes at 52-week highs. commodities surging once again. copper at an eight-year high. phelps dodge, that individual stock, had a seven-year high. many materials stocks performing well like alcoa and dow chemicals. rising material and energy stocks, what we saw today, 2 1/2 high in the coal index. ore index at a 4 1/12-year high. not only energy and materials, we were talking about many of the commodities. c.r.v. at its highest level in 20 years. that was helped by crude oil. crude oil is something we have been watching for quite some time. it was a year ago that we saw crude oil at $37.85 a barrel. today we neared that level, at least $37 a barrel href. that helped many of the oil- related stocks, anywhere from oil services to many of the integrated oil and oil refinery performing well today. a lot of record highs as well. we were talking about 52-week highs. record highs in the small cap and mid cap and homebuilder index. a look at how they’re performing in comparison with the s&p and dow, can you see small caps and mid caps outperforming the dow and s&p 500. what was helping the mid caps, as we mentioned, homebuilders at record highs today. that held up the mid cap index and also hovnanian reporting their earnings after the close of trading. pretty much an up day all day today. we saw it accelerating in the last 2 1/2 hours of trading.
>> all right, deborah kostroun. we’ll check on hovnanian as soon as it comes out. over to the nasdaq which bounced back from a down week last week. up on the day by almost 28 points to 2,058. volume on the nasdaq today, about 1.7 billion shares traded. julie hyman standing by in times square at nasdaq market site. julie, you have good news to talk about.
>> we do, mike. it’s the same story that the manufacturing data helped give the nasdaq a boost, also the fact that we have had six down weeks. folks think the nasdaq is due for a bit of a bounce. we saw gains today. we saw the gains in the morning. extending as the afternoon wore on. a lot of computer-raoeltd shares doing well as well as semiconducter stocks lifting the nasdaq as a whole. in terms of company stories we saw, it was about the biotechnology industry. nasdaq biotech index up .3%, outperforming the nasdaq as a whole on the year. shares of sepracor up 57%. it is the biggest gain the stock has ever seen. the company said its insomnia drug, astora, got tentative approval from the f.d.a. pending final approval. plans to have it on store shelves by midyear. cytec is making an acquisition. investors like that news. up 14%. medimmune going in the opposite direction, down 6%. this is news tied to the flumist flu vaccine. says it won’t see much revenue growth from this drug before 2 o 07. its 2004 earnings and sales forecast coming in behind what analysts had expected. we also have aaipharma down by 36% w.drew its forecast for 2004. said it may recede earnings for 2003 after seeing unusual sales in two of its product lines. more news on oracle and peoplesoft. not biotech but software. oracle may enlist microsoft, which has been an oracle rival, in the bid to defeat the government’s challenge to the deal. it said it is looking for information from microsoft that may show microsoft plans to enter the market for complex accounting software. now one of the government’s challenges to this deal had been that s.a.p. would be the only remaining rival. oracle trying to fight that. mike, back over to you.
>> julie hyman. stanley gold says disney chief executive michael eisner needs to leave his post. gold said in an interview with bloomberg news today that some members of the company’s board may support eisner’s removal. he wouldn’t identify the directors by name. gold said selling disney to another company isn’t the answer to its problems.
>> we think disney is best to remain independent. we think that in order to do that, you have to get these assets performing at a really effective rate. we don’t think this management could do it. the best defense against any takeover, be it comcast or anything else, is a high stock price.
>> the ohio public employees retirement system plans to with hold board re-election votes from eisner. they cited the company’s performance. ohio’s largest state pension would like disney to split the roles of chairman and chief executive. greg miles in philadelphia for the disney meeting. we’ll have another preview coming up in the next hour of the “world financial report.” the european union today began imposing trade sanctions on u.s. imports from candles to roller skates. a dispute over the so-called foreign sales corporation which allows american companies to set up offices outside the country that benefit from tax breaks. the world trade organization ruled in november a law is illegal and gave the e.u. the option of imposing 100% duties on $4 billion worth of u.s. furs toys, textiles, meat and other products. sanction are going to be phased in to get congress to try to change the law. u.s. manufacturing did hold near a 20-year high last month. coming up, we talk with the chief investment officer about what that may mean for february employment and the direction of stocks.
